


Dawning

by eriev



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11701953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eriev/pseuds/eriev
Summary: After the Final Battle, Hannah can't sleep.  Neither can Dennis.





	Dawning

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, here's a piece I found in one of my folders. It's from 2014.

Tic, tic, tic, tic.  She can hear the hands on her dented gold watch moving ever so slowly.  Tic, tic, tic.  Muggle watches always made such a racket, especially when the room was quiet and the floor was cold and hard and you just wanted to sleep, but you couldn’t.  Tic, tic, tic.  She wasn’t planning on taking the watch off ever.  It had been a gift from her mother.

Drip!  Drip!  Someone, she can’t tell who, coughs and the symphony of sounds that begins when a room is too quiet commences.  Tic, tic, tic.  Drip!  Drip!  *Cough.* She is positive she just heard a sneeze enter the symphony, and that is when she knows she must leave.

She is unsure if many others are awake, or if they are lying here, like she has, waiting to actually wake up and find out the whole mess with You-Know-Who was all a terrible nightmare and that their beloved friends and family are standing above them, laughing and smiling, not lying in an undisclosed classroom somewhere, dead and cold.

Dead and cold like her mother, who was discovered lying on the living room rug.  They said that her eyes were open and the police couldn’t find anything wrong with her, other than the fact that she was dead.  Her eyes became wet with tears as she remembered Judith Abbot, a muggle in a magical world.  But she musn’t think of that, not when she had sworn to shed no more tears about it.

So instead she shed silent tears for Colin Creevey and Fred Weasley and Susan… no, she musn’t think what they did to Susan.

She takes a deep breath, in and out, like her mother – no, she musn’t think of her – told her to.  She rubs her hands together to generate heat.  It is May and the Great Hall is packed with people, but it is cold lying on the hard stone floor with only a raggedy blanket for comfort.  A shiver runs down her spine and muffled sobbing, not her own, joins the chorus of sobs.

Of course, everyone is in pain, but she must find the sobber; it is instinct that kicks in.  This was her purpose in Dumbledore’s Army this year; to be a shoulder to cry on, even when she barely had anyone lean on herself.  There is someone there expressing pain, but she cannot determine the gender of the one who is crying.

She rises to her feet as slowly and quietly as possible, but this of course alerts everyone in the room.  She can feel their eyes on her, most peeking out from under their own blankets, but she ignores the stares.  She picks up her blanket and listens; the sobbing seems to be coming from  _ outside _ the Great Hall.

She tiptoes out of the room, careful not to tread on anyone’s toes.  However, mere movement makes her shoes squeak, so she removes them and carries them with her.  Moving as expertly as a cat, she makes her way out into the hallway.  She looks around and sees a small figure in the corner.  From the size of him, he must be a third or fourth year at the oldest.

Gingerly, she approaches the boy.  He looks up for a moment and huddles into the corner like a wounded animal.  She meditates on the best way to approach the situation.  She sits beside him and he regresses further into the corner.  When she tries to touch his shoulder to comfort him, he flinches as if scalded.

She decides her next method of action is to try and speak to the boy.  “Hullo, my name is Hannah.  What’s wrong?”

He looks up at her.  His face is sallow and thin and he bears a resemblance to Colin Creevey.  The former Colin Creevey.  She tries to remember this boy’s name.  Dustin?  Duncan?  Dennis?  She decides to go with the latter.  “Dennis?” she asks.  She is approaching a wounded animal. 

“Leave me alone,” he sniffles, turning away from her and into his corner as if searching for answers in the stone.

“I’m here to help you Dennis; I just want to help.  I won’t say a word if you don’t want me to; I’m a good listener.”

“I don’t want your help,” he says.  She tries to touch him again, this time on his back.  “I DON’T WANT YOUR HELP!”  He buries his face into the wall as if trying to immerse himself in it.

She pulls her hand away and tries a different approach, one that might cause her to burst into tears as well.  She promised herself not to think about it, but… “My mother was killed a year ago.”  She clenches her fists.  “Killed for being a muggle in a magical world.  When she… when I heard she died, I-I couldn’t take it.  It felt as if every piece of me was being stripped away.  But someone listened to me, and it helped.  So, if you want-”  Tears threaten to spill over, but eased slightly as she remembered Neville’s broad hand on her shoulder as he told her how he had lost his parents (not to death, he said, but refused to elaborate).

Dennis interrupts her.  “D-D-D-Does it get better?  He-Colin was there w-w-when I woke up and he was there a few hours ago, but n-n-now…”  He turns back to the wall again.

Her heart reaches out to the boy who had lost his brother and perhaps his best friend as well.  “It gets better, but the pain never fully goes away.  Sometimes you just deal with it; take a deep breath and remember how to function.  And your brother won’t be forgotten.”  She vows to do everything in her power to make sure Colin Creevey is recognized as a war hero.  She places a hand on his shoulder again and this time, he doesn’t pull away.

“He was just…. Colin just wanted to help; to fight for Harry Potter and for all Muggleborns.  I wanted to come too, but he wouldn’t let me.  Said I was too young, but he’s – was - only two years older.”  Dennis stutters, making the mistake of using present tense.  “Maybe if I held him back, cried some more, he wouldn’t be-” He sobs again and Hannah rubs his back soothingly.

“SSShhh.  It’s not your fault, Dennis,” she says.  They sit in silence for a while after that, the only sounds being Dennis’ sobs and the noise from the Great Hall.  Sounds ebb and flow - sobs of the mourning, gentle murmurs of comfort, cheers of those who are glad that the war is  _ finally _ over.

Dennis leans into her, and she accepts his touch, putting an arm around his shoulders.  They’re strangers, yes, but so is the new world they will have to face.  Everyone in Hogwarts is connected by the same bittersweetness - the memory of friends, comrades, being struck down with a mere flash of green light, and the sweet light of daybreak as a monster fell.


End file.
